The gruesome truth about life after RIP

12:00AM BST 17 Aug 1996

After the Funeral: the Posthumous Adventures of Famous Corpses By Edwin Murphy; Citadel/Biblios, £8.99 (pbk)

EINSTEIN's brain was removed from his body for study upon his death in 1955, and disappeared without trace. It was rediscovered in 1978, in a bottle of formaldehyde under a beer cooler in a doctor's office in Wichita, Kansas.

"Most biographies end with the death and burial of their subject," explains the author of this curious study. "This is a book that begins where most biographies leave off." The result of Edwin Murphy's investigations is an eclectic and hugely enjoyable mix of facts and anecdotes, at once comical and unexpectedly poignant. One is reminded repeatedly of the absolute power that the living wield over the dead, and of the dreadful indignities that one may suffer even after one's demise.

William the Conqueror is a case in point. I had a vague idea that his funeral was less than the smooth and professional ceremony one expects on such royal occasions, but Murphy gives us all the grisly details.

William died in Rouen in September 1087, whereupon squabbling broke out over burial arrangements. After some weeks' delay his putrefying body had swollen considerably. When it was finally lowered into the appointed stone coffin in Caen abbey, a contemporary historian wrote, "they were obliged to use some violence in forcing it in," until finally "his corpulent stomach . . . shamefully burst", popping open like an over-ripe plum and filling the abbey with an odour very unlike that of sanctity. Anglo-Saxon chroniclers were gleeful at this ignominious end.

All this would have been bad enough, but in 1562 the tomb was ransacked by Calvinists and all but his thighbone was lost. That was lost in the excitement of 1793, and not finally re-buried until 1988. RIP.

It just goes to show that, as some pop stars have discovered, death need be no impediment to one's career.

How appropriate that the corporeal remains of that great traveller Columbus should rest in four different cities. Allegedly. Santo Domingo, Seville, Havana and Valladolid all have strong claims. Nobody knows for certain. Haydn's head was stolen in 1809, probably by an over-zealous phrenologist, and did not rejoin his body until 1954, after many interesting travels.

The story of Joe Hill is oddly touching. The radical activist was executed for murder in 1915, and had asked for his ashes to be sent to workers' organisations throughout the world. One of the packets was intercepted by the FBI on the grounds that it was seditious material being sent by post, and held in custody until 1988 when it was finally released to the grateful workers of the world.

Voltaire suffered an appalling case of disjecta membra after his death. The Marquis de Villette took his heart, someone else pinched his left foot, others helped themselves to his teeth, and the apothecary Monsieur Mithouart had the philosopher's brain boiled up in alcohol and took it home with him in a jam-pot. My favourite story is that of the beautiful Inez de Castro, mistress to the Infante Dom Pedro. She borehim a number of illegitimate children and so, for complex dynastic reasons, had to be crowned Queen of Portugal in 1360. But as Murphy drily notes: "Her elevation to royalty didn't make the least impression on her . . . for . . . Inez had already been dead for five years before the event." It just goes to show that, as some pop stars have discovered, death need be no impediment to one's career.

This strange, poignant and sometimes gruesome book has a final moral that must be clear: if you want to stay in one piece after your death, do not die famous.